Copyright © 2009 by Laurie Faria Stolarz
All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.
First Edition
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
ILS No. V567-9638-5
258 2009
Printed in the United States of America
Reinforced binding
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.
ISBN 978-1-4231-1145-0
Visit www.hyperionteens.com
Table of Contents
Also By Laurie Faria Stolarz
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Acknowledgments
About The Author
Also by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Deadly Little Secret
Project 17
Bleed
Blue Is for Nightmares
White Is for Magic
Silver Is for Secrets
Red Is for Remembrance
Black Is for Beginnings
For Ed, Ryan, and Shawn
with love and gratitude
1
I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Most nights, I find myself lying awake in bed, unable to nod off.
And unable to take my mind off him.
The strength of his hands.
The way he smelled—a mix of sugar and sweat.
And the branchlike scar that snaked up his arm.
Ever since Ben left four months ago, I’ve been getting fixated on these little things, trying to remember if his scar had three branches or four, if it was his left or his right thumb knuckle that always looked a little swollen, and if his sugary smell was more like powdered doughnuts or cotton candy.
Sometimes I think I’m going crazy. And I’m not just saying that to be dramatic. I really question my sanity. Things just haven’t been right lately. I haven’t been right.
And I guess that’s what scares me the most.
Like last night. Once again unable to sleep, I crept into the hallway and down to the basement. My dad, who firmly believes that we all should have our own personal work space, has designated the area behind his tool bench as my pottery studio. And so I have a wheel, bins full of carving tools, and boxes of clay just waiting to be sculpted.
Wearing a nightshirt and slippers, I decided to work in the dark, inspired by the moon as it poured in through the window, slicing a long strip of light across my table. I cut myself a thick hunk of clay and began to knead it out. With my eyes closed I could feel the moonlight tugging at the ends of my hair, shining over my skin, and swallowing my hands whole.
Keeping focused on the clammy texture of the clay and not what I was actually forming, I tried to relax—to stop the whirring inside my mind.
But then it hit me. The image of Ben’s scar popped into my head. And so I started sculpting it—feeding this weird, insatiable need inside me to form his arm, from his fingertips to just past his elbow. My fingers worked fast, as if independent of my mind—as if they knew exactly the way things should be, while my brain just couldn’t keep up.
At least thirty minutes later, long after my fingers had turned waterlogged, I took a step back to take it all in— what I had sculpted and what it could possibly mean. Sitting on my worktable was my sculpture of Ben’s arm— his scar, the muscles in his wrist, and the bones in his hands.
It was exactly the way it should be—exactly the way I remembered it.
His scar had three branches, not four.
It was his left thumb that looked a little bit swollen, not the right.
The answers to my obsessive little thoughts were right there. I’d sculpted them all out, which absolutely baffled me.
And that’s when I heard him: “Camelia,” he whispered. His voice sounded just like I’d remembered—soft, smooth, deep, able to steal my breath and make my heart pound.
I turned to look. But, aside from the lingering glow of the moonlight, there was just darkness behind me. A cold, dank basement with cement floors, boxes piled high, and old bicycles parked against the wall. Still, I strained my eyes, wondering if he was there somehow. Maybe he’d snuck in through the garage. Could my mom have forgotten to lock it again?
“Ben?” I whispered into the darkness. I wiped my hands and took a couple steps, but I didn’t see anything. An anxious sensation formed in the pit of my stomach.
I reluctantly turned back to my work.
And then I heard it again: “Camelia,” he whispered, only louder this time.
My hands shaking, I grabbed a carving knife, just in case, and then switched on the overhead light. Two of the three bulbs blew. A bright bolt of light flashed and then everything went dark.
I moved back, toward the cement wall, hoping for stability, noticing a sudden scraping sound. It was coming from just behind me. I turned to look, realizing I’d bumped a can of paint. It toppled to the floor. Paint spilled out in a creamy dark fluid that reminded me of blood.
I let out a breath and headed toward the back of the basement, past our collection of ski equipment and gardening shovels, knowing that he must be here somewhere.
Watching me.
“Ben?” I called, focused on the stack of boxes in the corner. My insides stirring, I moved closer, accidentally tripping over an old bicycle pump. A yelp sputtered from my throat. The furnace kicked on with a roar, sending a chill straight up my spine.
I peered over my shoulder, wondering if my parents had heard me, if they might come downstairs.
“Is that you?” I whispered, feeling my pulse race.
When no one moved and nothing happened, I pushed the stack of boxes so that they toppled to the ground. Old clothes spilled onto the floor.
“Camelia,” he whispered.
It was coming from the top of the stairs now.
I gripped the knife and moved in that direction, following his v
oice as it led me through the dark kitchen, down an even darker hallway, and then into my bedroom.
I clicked on the light—it stung my eyes—and peered around the room. I checked inside my closet and underneath my bed. But there was no sign of him.
“Ben?” I whispered, wondering if he’d snuck out the window.
I dropped the knife, unlocked the pane, and opened the window wide. The cold January air bit at my skin.
Finally I saw him. He was standing across the street, shrouded by a clump of barren trees in front of my neighbor’s house, staring back in my direction.
My head still spinning, I managed to wave. With my other hand I pinched myself, wondering if in only a few moments I would wake up.
But it wasn’t a dream. It was real. He was there. The clock on my bedside table read 2:49 a.m.
I waved again, but he didn’t wave back. So I grabbed my phone and dialed his cell. It barely even rang before I heard him pick up.
“Ben?” I asked, when he didn’t say hello. I looked again out the window, hoping to see him with his phone.
But the figure was no longer there. A second later, the phone clicked off. And when I called back, it went straight to his voice mail.
2
January 22, 1984
Dear Diary,
Today I turned 13 and my sister Jilly gave me you, Diary, as my present. She wrapped you up in a pretty acrylic painting she made of a vase full of roses with swirly stems.
Jilly swore me to secrecy, saying that if I ever told our mother where I got you, she’d never speak to me again.
Because my mother doesn’t want me to have presents. Because my mother doesn’t want me period.
I promised Jilly I’d do whatever she says. I want her to like me. I want more surprise gifts like you in the future. And I also want someone to give them to.
Instead of a cake, I grabbed one of my sketches, erased most of the angry scribbles, and then blew the eraser dust into the air as I made a wish.
I wished for my world to be as pretty asa vase full of roses with swirly stems.
I wished that I didn’t hate myself all the time.
Love,
Alexia
3
Wait. WHAT?” Kimmie blurts. She sets her latte down on the table with a smack. Her pale blue eyes, framed by a pair of vintage tortoiseshell glasses, widen in disbelief.
It’s Sunday—the last night of winter vacation—and she, Wes, and I are sitting at the Press & Grind, the coffee shop downtown, indulging in an array of over-the-counter stimulants in the form of caffeine and chocolate.
“It’s true,” I say. “I don’t know how it happened.”
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Wes begins. “It was two a.m., you couldn’t sleep, your mind was racing with all kinds of crazy . . . Might you have been smoking something funky? Surely that would make me want to sculpt something kinky.”
“Like an arm is even kinky?” Kimmie says. “Leave it to Camelia to sculpt something G-rated. Now if it were me—”
“You’d be sculpting my ass?” Wes asks.
“Only if I needed a good laugh,” Kimmie says.
“Funky smoking might also help explain the mysterious voices of which you speak,” Wes suggests.
“Was your bedroom window locked?” Kimmie asks.
I nod, remembering how I’d had to unlock it to open the pane.
“So, it must have been your imagination,” she continues. “Otherwise, the window would have been open, right? I mean, how do you sneak out a window and then lock it back up from the outside?”
“I know.” I sigh. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Wait, didn’t your dad get an alarm system?” Wes asks.
“He was going to, but instead he just got the window stickers and yard signs to make it look like our house is armed.”
“A crafty one, isn’t he?” Wes smirks.
“Super crafty.” I roll my eyes. “He also added a hyperactive motion detector in the driveway, a security camera that points toward the stairs but doesn’t work, and he trimmed the bushes—”
“The biggest deterrent,” Kimmie mocks.
“Of course none of it really matters,” I continue, “because he constantly leaves the window in the basement open a crack, complaining that the pottery fumes give him a headache.”
“Well, security measures aside, we believe you about hearing voices,” Wes says, flashing me the okay sign with his fingers (as in not okay). “Not to mention your nagging need to sculpt Ben’s body parts.”
“Right,” Kimmie says. “And we also believe in the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and the fact that Wes is a certified stud muffin.”
Wes turns to Kimmie, using his middle finger to wipe the cappuccino froth from his lip.
“You don’t think it’s weird that one minute I’m lying in bed, obsessing over what his scar looks like, and then, not an hour later, I sculpt his entire arm without barely even thinking about it—exactly as it should be?”
“Exactly as you think it should be,” Wes says, correcting me.
I shake my head, confident that what I sculpted was right.
“What I think is weird,” Kimmie begins, “is that you’re trying to get us to believe that your mind and body weren’t in sync—as if your hands had been invaded by the body snatchers or something.”
Wes stifles a laugh with a bite of brownie.
“Bottom line,” she continues, “the subconscious mind works in mysterious ways—accept it and move on.”
“But it wasn’t subconscious,” I insist. “I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Maybe you were sleepwalking,” Wes suggests.
“You don’t understand,” I say, frustrated that they don’t get it, even though I don’t get it either. “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened.”
“You’ve sculpted Ben’s other random body parts in the middle of the night?” Wes asks, attempting to run his fingers through his petrified hair (literally petrified: a hardened shell of gel, mousse, and dark brown spikes).
“Do tell.” Kimmie leans in and bats her mascara-laden eyelashes at me.
And so I fill them in on what happened last week, when I sculpted a key for no other reason than that I felt I absolutely needed to. Later, that same day, when I got home from work, I couldn’t find my key ring and my parents weren’t home. “I ended up locked out of the house for more than two hours.”
Wes and Kimmie stare at me—Kimmie with her ruby-stained lips hanging open in sheer bewilderment, and Wes readjusting his wire-rimmed glasses like that will make a difference, bring clarity to where there’s obviously none.
“So, what are you saying?” Kimmie ventures. “You’re having some sort of weird artistic premonitions?”
“Maybe,” I say, biting my bottom lip, realizing how stupid the theory sounds outside the confines of my head.
“Okay, so let’s just say for the sake of insanity,” Wes begins, “that there was no Ben inside your house, that some weird premonition thing inside your head created that voice to lead you up the stairs, into your bedroom, so you would look out your window in the middle of the night. What do you think Ben was doing outside?”
“I don’t know.” I sip my cappuccino. “Maybe he wanted to talk to me.”
“Then why not say hello when you called him on the phone?” Kimmie asks. “Are you sure it was even Ben outside?”
I shrug, not wanting to admit that, despite the street-lamp, I couldn’t exactly see much detail. From what I could tell, the figure was tall, slim, and wearing a dark coat.
“Right, it could have been some other random stalker,” Wes suggests.
“Like Matt, for instance,” Kimmie offers. “I mean, let’s face it, the boy is as free as a jailbird.”
“No pun intended,” Wes says, referring to Matt’s punishment. At his trial two months ago, he was sentenced to just two years of probation. “Did you even see Ben’s motorcycle?” he asks.
I shake my head an
d sink back in my seat, fairly confident I would have noticed his motorcycle—or at least heard it—if he were actually there.
“Hmmm . . .” Kimmie says, raising her stud-pierced eyebrow at me, perhaps not wanting to break the news— that I sound like a complete and utter nut.
The thing is, nutty theories aside, ever since Ben Carter pushed his way (literally) into my life seven months ago, things haven’t quite been the same.
The first time we met, I was crossing the parking lot behind the school when a car came screeching in my direction. The next thing I knew, someone, Ben, pushed me out of the way just in the nick of time.
And in doing so, he touched me.
He rested his palm on my stomach and then something really weird happened. He stared at me with new intensity, his eyes wide and urgent, his lips slightly parted, as if he could feel something I couldn’t.
It turned out that Ben had psychometry—the ability to sense things through touch. When he accidentally brushed his hand against my stomach that day, he sensed I was in danger—and beyond just the danger of getting hit by a car. The better he got to know me, the more the feeling intensified.
And he was right. I was in danger. My ex-boyfriend Matt had been plotting to keep me captive in the back of his parents’ camper—in a sick and twisted scheme to win me back. Luckily, Ben had been around to save me for a second time. You’d think that would have brought us closer together.
But instead it only tore us apart.
“You want my theory?” Kimmie asks, taking a bite of éclair. “I think you’re missing Ben to the kagillionth power, and so your mind is playing tricks on you.”
“Let’s face it, Miss Chameleon,” Wes agrees, “you’ve got more longing in your eyes than I have stylish footwear in my closet.”
“You call those things stylish?” Kimmie evil-eyes his man-clogs.
“Are you kidding? The saleslady told me I looked hot in these. I had to pay through the nose.”
“Are you sure you didn’t pull them out of your nose, too?”
“This from a girl who dresses like the Bride of Frankenstein meets June Cleaver.” He gives her outfit the once-over. Today Kimmie’s got on a pink and white bib-dress reminiscent of hospital volunteer wear, circa 1973.
She’s also wearing a necklace made of rusted nails, with torn up fishnet stockings, combat boots, and a newsboy cap to cover her dyed-black locks.